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How have Gw price rises affected your purchasing habits?


Rodiger

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1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

I think this is exactly the case, and of course the end result of that line of thinking. I believe most players have a budget of sorts and will continue to spend it as long as they're in the game. GW doesn't care if a customer stops a particular army because it's too expensive or got nerfed or whatever, as long as they continue spending their budget on GW products. Really the only issue they face is the minor amount of attrition that comes along with the price increases, losing some players completely. In theory that should be made up with new players but of course as prices get higher and higher the likelihood of new players gets lower and lower. The fear is typically that the flow of new players willing to pay the frankly absurd entry cost for the game will eventually dry up and the game will wither on the vine so to speak. Of course that fear has been around for years and the game still seems to be doing fine, so who knows if it'll ever actually come to pass. 

Personally, I know that the hikes have basically made me embarrassed to suggest the game to people because I just can't imagine anyone willing to pay the costs out of the gate, and I know exactly how people would react to the sticker shock. They've also killed my desire to start new factions because it takes too many months of hobby budget to get a functioning force up and running. That leaves me with fleshing out my existing factions which is plenty of hobby time for now, but will also eventually dry up unless GW starts going back and adding new models to the ranges. 

My start was when I first walked into a hobby store, maybe 2-3 years back, and saw all the amazing miniatures. I selected my faction, and bought a single box. I ended up staying away from it for another 2 years because I didn't have paints or the tools, and I was just kinda pushed away from the hobby, especially considering the fact that my chosen faction was a bit, well, under powered at the time (KO). When the released the new BT I was finally able to justify entering into the hobby fully and instead of getting a small 10 man box actually got the SC and had everything to go for some battles. Ofc this was in Jan of 2020 so no glorious battle for me. Basically what I am trying to get at is that the costs were high but I had anticipated that and accepted that it's going to be a slow grow hobby. Got a friend stuck in recently as well, which is quite nice. Once again, although he is a bit scared of the costs, he accepts it's a new hobby. Speaking from the viewpoint of a new hobbyist.

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I'm no longer a single young professional so I spend less due to mortgage and two kids than price rises.  I find people notice prices more when money and free time change over GWs price hike.  It is a luxury hobby so we already have expenditure once you join in.

Edited by Popisdead
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1 hour ago, Sttufe said:

My start was when I first walked into a hobby store, maybe 2-3 years back, and saw all the amazing miniatures. I selected my faction, and bought a single box. I ended up staying away from it for another 2 years because I didn't have paints or the tools, and I was just kinda pushed away from the hobby, especially considering the fact that my chosen faction was a bit, well, under powered at the time (KO). When the released the new BT I was finally able to justify entering into the hobby fully and instead of getting a small 10 man box actually got the SC and had everything to go for some battles. Ofc this was in Jan of 2020 so no glorious battle for me. Basically what I am trying to get at is that the costs were high but I had anticipated that and accepted that it's going to be a slow grow hobby. Got a friend stuck in recently as well, which is quite nice. Once again, although he is a bit scared of the costs, he accepts it's a new hobby. Speaking from the viewpoint of a new hobbyist.

Yeah like I said, the fear has been around for a long time but the game hasn't died yet and there are are still new players. For example my gaming group has about 15-20 semi-regular players and maybe a third have started in the last two years. I do see a pretty worrying trend of people starting to drift off to other game systems at the moment (well... pre-covid anyway), but I'm not sure if that's cost related or if people are just looking for something new to spice things up. 

I imagine there are a lot less new players than there could be, but I'm pretty sure that GW has run the numbers and is carefully optimizing their prices to maximize profits just like any good corporation. If they lose out on 1,000 new players that would profit them $200/year but get an extra $30 per year from the existing 10,000 players, then they're still ahead. As long as they can keep it cheap enough for at least a small number of new players the game should survive. I think that's part of why they re-introduced the start collecting boxes a few years back, I'm guessing that they were seeing a low enough rate of new players that they had to act to lower the barrier to entry. I'm curious to see what else they do the next time they hit that point.

Edited by Grimrock
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Prices have gone up above inflation since the beginning of the 00s. That said, I imagine manufacturing costs have probably risen more than inflation and the standard of the miniatures has really risen since the early 10s. 

Price rises are always hard to take but to be honest I am surprised they have taken this decision. Games Workshop models were probably slightly overpriced as it was and the standard of the competition has improved. Parabellum and ASOIAF both have some lovely looking miniatures. However, it is hard to grow a new miniatures game and Games Workshop will get away with it as I can't see either been a threat. 

I will probably invest the same amount of money as I do in purchasing models from Games Workshop. It will just mean less models for more money over the long run. I just hope it doesn't push prospective players away. If ASOIAF or Parabellum do, however, end up looking like they will be around for the long run I might turn to one of them.

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On 5/24/2020 at 5:32 PM, Saxon said:

I honestly haven't purchased anything brand new from  GW in about 18 months (other than my recent trip to the UK) due to costs. Honestly, i'm going to start collecting Bolt Action before i start another AOS army.

Why not have your troops pull double duty in both the trenches of history and the Mortal Realms?

Make some steampunk backpacks (or just use Kharadron balloons) that can be magnetized  on and off so in AoS they can double as a City of Sigmar army with a high tech bent. Either Ironweld and Ghyran to account for green & camouflage colors or Aqshy and the Tempest city as they're using Kharadron weapons and can be used as a CoS force in AoS & Skirmish and a Kharadron proxy force for Underworlds & Warcry.

Best thing about the hobby and the Mortal Realms is your imagination and creativity can get you far. ;)

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I would imagine that very few players started in the last few months, due to Corona. And in the coming months, money will be an issue for many people. Weird timing for a price increase.

On the other hand, production will already have a hard time to meet demands. Many online shops are currently out of stock on many items.

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12 hours ago, Baron Klatz said:

Why not have your troops pull double duty in both the trenches of history and the Mortal Realms?

Make some steampunk backpacks (or just use Kharadron balloons) that can be magnetized  on and off so in AoS they can double as a City of Sigmar army with a high tech bent. Either Ironweld and Ghyran to account for green & camouflage colors or Aqshy and the Tempest city as they're using Kharadron weapons and can be used as a CoS force in AoS & Skirmish and a Kharadron proxy force for Underworlds & Warcry.

Best thing about the hobby and the Mortal Realms is your imagination and creativity can get you far. ;)

Alternategyro.jpeg.28e04c05ae162d190c74d77e2a84d1b9.jpeg

Taken from the Painting contract thread. I've decided I wanted a few gyrocopters, and WW1 material really works for this. Still mostly GW stuff though, only the wings, wheels, tail and spar are not.

Greywater Fastness is a decidedly WW1 feeling City, you could easily take WW1 tanks as Steam tanks, Planes as Gyrocopters and bombers, mortars and artillery as volley guns and rocket batteries and lots of handgunners (as well as a few Irondrakes, if you change them up a bit).

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Has this latest round of price rises affected my buying habits?  The TL:DR answer is no.  However the more I think about it, the more I realise that my buying habits have changed fairly significantly over the past years - for a few different reasons.

I've been in the hobby for quite a long time, "back in the day", GW's release schedule was pretty sparse and you could quite feasibly stick to a single project (often an army) for three or more years - likely fending off any burnout by adding smaller projects like Necromunda gangs, Mordheim warbands etc.  It was largely irrelevant if you picked up your main project in one hit or if you bought it piecemeal over the time - thinking about it, this was the reason we got Tale of Four Wargamers, which set a really good structure to build and paint an army (I've still yet to do this!)

Not only is the release schedule much more intense, but the number of game systems that GW produce has increased as well.  This means if I continued as I used to, I'd very quickly be overwhelmed by how much stuff I have to paint or find myself in a situation where I couldn't buy a new release because I'd run out of space/cash.  Instead what I'm finding is that I'm looking at each release that interests me and seeing how I can fit it into my available hobby time.  I map out about six months worth of painting with what I fancy doing (it constantly gets juggled around).  Now don't get me wrong, I still impulse buy some bits!  However I try to avoid doing this where possible, knowing that on the whole it will still be available in a years time.

One thing I do is to put aside the princely sum of £32.50 each month into a hobby fund - I generally increase this when I receive my annual payrise.  This acts as a little pot of money that I can dip into as I need to - normally for models (consumables tends to come out of my day to day spending money).  This just helps me stay grounded when it comes to random thoughts like "I could pick up an entire Tzeentch army" (the answer was no, I couldn't justify it)

Ultimately hobbies aren't cheap and wargaming (especially GW games) is what I'd class as a premium hobby.  I do think it's really important to manage your expectations, especially for AoS and 40k.  If you're just starting out, you don't *need* a full 2000 point army - in fact you're better off picking up a starter set and using the freely available rules to get a feel of the game.  That'll cost you about the same as a modern board game (and less than a computer game).  Do I think GW miniatures are expensive?  They're certainly expensive enough that I don't buy new models every month - however each time I do buy a box of models I also know that I've been dipping into a wealth of YouTube videos, Twitch streams and articles online that are either free or cost me pocket change.

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1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

This means if I continued as I used to, I'd very quickly be overwhelmed by how much stuff I have to paint or find myself in a situation where I couldn't buy a new release because I'd run out of space/cash.  Instead what I'm finding is that I'm looking at each release that interests me and seeing how I can fit it into my available hobby time.  I map out about six months worth of painting with what I fancy doing (it constantly gets juggled around).  Now don't get me wrong, I still impulse buy some bits!  However I try to avoid doing this where possible, knowing that on the whole it will still be available in a years time.

...

Ultimately hobbies aren't cheap and wargaming (especially GW games) is what I'd class as a premium hobby.  I do think it's really important to manage your expectations, especially for AoS and 40k.  If you're just starting out, you don't *need* a full 2000 point army - in fact you're better off picking up a starter set and using the freely available rules to get a feel of the game.  That'll cost you about the same as a modern board game (and less than a computer game).  Do I think GW miniatures are expensive?  They're certainly expensive enough that I don't buy new models every month - however each time I do buy a box of models I also know that I've been dipping into a wealth of YouTube videos, Twitch streams and articles online that are either free or cost me pocket change.

This is pretty much how I feel too. Obviously other people will approach the hobby differently - be more focused on gaming, especially if doing competitions. 

But I am a fairly slow painter, partly through not being able to do it as much as I'd like (present circumstances excepted) - I aim to get in 30 mins each day. Basically this means that if I buy a box of models then it will take me several weeks, often months, to get them built and painted. If I could afford to buy a whole 2000 point army at once then the vast majority of it would sit around unbuilt and unpainted for possibly years. 

A box of models - or a large centre piece character - will cost a lot of money but I will get a lot of hobby time/enjoyment out of building, painting and then playing with them. 

This does mean that I have to make choices over whether to do things like go to the cinema, go out for a meal and some drinks or buy some AoS models. I, therefore, make value judgements on what I want to do more. My lifestyle now, as opposed to a few years ago, means I'm not able to go out as much (we have 2 dogs and my partner works nights so I have to be at home for them). It also means that I'm probably never going to buy any of the largest models such as Alarielle but then I probably never was anyway - if I did it would be my only hobby project for a year or so.

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I agree, more often it’s personal life that gets in the way. I was almost done with my 1500 points of Ogors (which were actually quite cheap) and was already looking for shops/hobbying groups to get them on the table (and to motivate me for the last finishing touches) when I got married. Then Corona struck. Since then, I hardly touched a brush. And while I had time to think I began to figure that I wouldn’t have the time to play regularly anyway (or, rather, prefer to spend my free hours/days with wife and daughter).  Prices won’t change that.

I will paint another miniature every now and then, I think. But if you’re not planning to build a whole army, prices also don’t matter all that much.

Edited by Beastmaster
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2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Not only is the release schedule much more intense, but the number of game systems that GW produce has increased as well. 

I was thinking about this the other day, when exactly did GW move to weekly releases? I really can't remember. Was it around the time of White Dwarf Weekly or much before then?

 

Anyway, I have also noticed I haven't missed weekly releases since they have stopped. If anything it has been nice to have a break from them, and it's not just the pulling power of a shiny new product, it's also all the articles on the community site, like the fluff, rules etc. And since just stepping back for a little bit I can clearly see what they are, marketing. I do like them and prefer they were there than not, but how fast they come out then are discarded as soon as the next one comes along is just a bit much.

 

Another thing I had been thinking was about the Start Collecting. When they came out they were supposed to replace the old battalion army boxes, the battalions had more models and cost a lot more. The start collecting were refreshing, 40 pounds seemed reasonable, it was great entry point to start with or get a new army. You got a nice manageable amount of models of different unit types, but now some of them coming out are up to the battalion price, and with a lot less in them.

18 minutes ago, Beastmaster said:

Then Corona struck. Since then, I hardly touched a brush. And while I had time to think I began to figure that I wouldn’t have the time to play regularly anyway (or, rather, prefer to spend my free hours/days with wife and daughter).  Prices won’t change that.

I agree about the family time. I've had the least amount of time I've had for wargaming since Corona. I live in South Korea and due to the schools closing meant I didn't work for over 1 month, you'd think not having any work would have given me a lot of time, but it also meant my daughter was home all day too, and spending time with her has kept me busier than ever. I've much prefered spending time with my daughter than painting any models.

 

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2 minutes ago, Rodiger said:

I was thinking about this the other day, when exactly did GW move to weekly releases? I really can't remember. Was it around the time of White Dwarf Weekly or much before then?

I think it may have come a before the weekly White Dwarf (could be wrong though).  If memory serves they moved from a single monthly reveal & release over to a monthly reveal but released weekly/fortnightly if that makes sense.  

Would agree that I've quite liked the slow down on releases, has really allowed me to think about the models I've got in cupboards, the amount of time I have available to hobby and what projects I want to do when.

One thing that has been interesting is that it's been fairly common for people to lose a bit of mojo in hobbying.  I think the lockdown has meant that for some people, the urgency and drive hasn't been there after all there's always tomorrow or the event you were working towards has been cancelled for a year.  For me it's actually been the opposite way round, it's been manic at work, so I've been really looking forward to getting home to do some hobby - that said I don't have any children, I'm sure my priorities would be different if I did ☺

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5 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Ultimately hobbies aren't cheap and wargaming (especially GW games) is what I'd class as a premium hobby.  I do think it's really important to manage your expectations, especially for AoS and 40k.  If you're just starting out, you don't *need* a full 2000 point army - in fact you're better off picking up a starter set and using the freely available rules to get a feel of the game.  That'll cost you about the same as a modern board game (and less than a computer game).  Do I think GW miniatures are expensive?  They're certainly expensive enough that I don't buy new models every month - however each time I do buy a box of models I also know that I've been dipping into a wealth of YouTube videos, Twitch streams and articles online that are either free or cost me pocket change.

Yet again I'm reminded of the difference in costs based on location. I'm in Canada, and a start collecting box is around 50% more expensive than a brand new video game, and easily 2 times as expensive as a brand new video game when it's on sale. They're also 10-30% more expensive than a premium board game (ie. one chock full of miniatures and gaming boards like zombicide) or again 2-3 times as expensive as a normal board game without miniatures. I'd actually be really curious to see a comparison of the people that have real issues with the pricing increase and where they're from. Wouldn't be surprised at all if the majority of them are from outside of the UK.

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Games Workshop prices have effected my spending a little bit.  There are a couple things here and there that I would have liked for kitbashing or just for painting, but couldn't justify the value to myself.  The best example was the Tau Riptide which I came really close to getting last year just to paint and maybe be a terrain/objective piece in Kill Team.  Then is was one of the big price increases of the last round.  Since I wasn't going to really use it for a gaming piece and I already had too much of painting backlog, the price increase put me off getting it. 

I could say the same for this round and terrain. I have plenty of terrain to setup at least 3-4 Kill Team boards plus a couple of Warcry boards in terrain now.  So I didn't really need more.  Although, if I happen to see something around the $30US price, I wouldn't to too bother to get quickly paint it up so have something a little new to add to the board/table next game.  The further that stuff gets away from there the less it becomes and nice little impulse purchase/thanks for letting me gaming at my FLGS.

What really has curtailed my spending is the current release schedule.  For 40K, I have a Chaos Space Marine, Primaris Space Marine and Genestealer Cult army plus a bunch of kill teams.  I was staying on top of my painting to about Shadowspear.  Then the new CSM and Abbadon happened.  Then more Phobos Primaris happened.  Again, I almost kinda caught up, then I was convinced to start a Slaves to Darkness army (which I really like).  That really set back my painting log that I still haven't quite recovered.  Even this year, I got bogged down with my Genestealer Cult as I had been holding off finishing the full army until the Start Collecting came out.  Which it did.  Then the lock down happened which should have given me time to caught up paint.  And it did... for someone else's army.  As a favor, I had friend of mine's Death Guard army in my possession to prime them so they could work on them.  I got stuck with them instead.  My friend has never been for painting so he just asked for me to do it.  So some 150 miniatures later, I just have Typhus (a hero character) that I spending a little extra time one and I will be finished.

Point is, I kinda wanted to start a Lumineth Realm Lords army, but I had to take a step back and really decide if I really wanted to tackle yet another project.  With the 9th edition previews for 40k, I had to say no.  I really have to start finishing what I already have.  That means 1 more major project (the 9th edition Primaris starter probably) before I will even consider starting some more.

TL;DR: I ain't happy about the price increase.  For the most part it has missed the armies (or the units in them) I still want this time around.  It has stopping getting a few things, but those are thing I probably shouldn't get anyways.  What has affected my spending more is the release schedule really favoring the things I like (I know first world space marine problems) creating a bigger and bigger pile of shame I can't seem to get out from under.  Sorry 'bout the rant.

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  • 2 years later...

Casting Reviving dead on this threat.

 

Haven‘t bought GW books for a while.

The new SBGL Tome costs 42,50€ and the WS Cards for 28€

wth? I remember tomes being ~28-34€ and the cards to be 16-19€

Did I miss something? 

I didn’t buy anything though I play the army, this feels ludacris to me.

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It has done wonders for my pile of plastics + I now focus on fewer projects at a time. I still buy stuff on occasion but there's been a significant drop in purchases.

When I look at the more expensive models though I've opted for alternatives since no matter how awesome many of them are, they're not that awesome. I certainly could afford them I just think they're asking too much.

 

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2 hours ago, pnkdth said:

It has done wonders for my pile of plastics + I now focus on fewer projects at a time. I still buy stuff on occasion but there's been a significant drop in purchases.

When I look at the more expensive models though I've opted for alternatives since no matter how awesome many of them are, they're not that awesome. I certainly could afford them I just think they're asking too much.

 

Same, I‘ve been heavily tackling my backlog for months now.

I buy the odd rattle can spray here and there or a hero but that’s it. 


 

Edit: Despite loving the new Seraphon I won‘t buy them on release or even this year since i know that they use every new release to ramp up the price by a few euros.

Edited by JackStreicher
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On 4/10/2023 at 11:31 AM, JackStreicher said:

Casting Reviving dead on this threat.

 

Haven‘t bought GW books for a while.

The new SBGL Tome costs 42,50€ and the WS Cards for 28€

wth? I remember tomes being ~28-34€ and the cards to be 16-19€

Did I miss something? 

I didn’t buy anything though I play the army, this feels ludacris to me.

Another price increase?

At just over 100 pages, that's close to 40 cents per page.

Pathfinder 2 core rulebook is €60 for 640 pages, so under 10 cents per page.

The pocket is €34,50, for 5.4 cents per page. And those pages contain a lot less rehashed art and lore.

They also have all their rules published online where other companies can use them for tools etc.

I'm really interested in what the margin is on their books.

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7 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

I'm really interested in what the margin is on their books.

 

A big part of that will come down to the print run I am assuming. The number one thing that costs money in making a book is the spine. (It's part of the reason why I think that GW is moving to card decks, they are cheaper to produce, the margins are higher and you can do smaller batch runs) I have absolutely no idea how many books GW does in a run (If I were to guess I would say 500/1000 Limited Edition and maybe 3000/5000 Battletomes) but the shear volume of books that they put out (all using the same general formatting and a lot of reused work) means the margins must be pretty high. I can't see a battle tome costing more than a few pounds to produce. 

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On 4/10/2023 at 8:26 AM, JackStreicher said:

Edit: Despite loving the new Seraphon I won‘t buy them on release or even this year since i know that they use every new release to ramp up the price by a few euros.

Same, I was glad their launch box is not at all appealing to me (I do NOT need 10 raptadons...) because now I can either buy the Vanguard and be done or wait for the Christmas battleforce if the Vanguard is missing key units I want.

 

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